GUILD PROGRAM REPORT 2021/2022

Introduction

The Guild Program is a platform for young people in our community to explore, discover knowledge, skills and opportunity for their growth and development through Critical Thinking and Computer Programming skills. 

In this program, young students (JSS1 -SS1) were enrolled for Computer Programming classes where they learned and gained Computer literacy skills particularly in the following Programming Languages:  Scratch, C, Python, SQL, HTML, CSS, JavaScript. The Guild Centre, our facility  is equipped with computers and accessories that would aid the student’s learning, make it conducive, as well as make the experience worthwhile for them as seen below:

Orientation day

On the 7th of August, 2021, the selected students for this program alongside their parents assembled at the  Guild Centre for the Orientation session. This was done with the aim of educating the parents on the purpose of the program. One of our volunteers, Miss Uche Okafor and the Program Coordinator, Miss Damilola Akanmu were on ground to administer the session. 

Miss Uche explained the importance of the programming skills to the parents,  citing different relatable examples of individuals doing excellently well in the field and by extension creating value in their societies. Miss Dami explained the rules of the program to them, which included the payment of a  monthly commitment fee of five hundred naira, alongside a written essay on any topic assigned for the month as the requirement needed to gain access to the Centre. She also explained how the program will be coordinated in terms of scheduling of classes, participation, attendance, the proper use and maintenance of the resources at the Centre.  After this, she gave the parents and students a tour of the resources available to the students for the sole purpose of the program. 

Beginning of the program

The program officially kicked off on Saturday, the 14th of August, 2021 with fourteen students from different Public Secondary Schools in Festac Town. These students are current alumni of PYP,  which means that they have previously participated in other programs organized by PYP and have proven to be diligent, consistent and committed towards improving their academic learning overtime. The programming classes were scheduled to hold every Saturday, where a tutor would come in and introduce new concepts to them, but asides this, they also had access to the Centre every other day of the week between Tuesday and Friday where the students were allowed to spend about two hours to perfect their learning with the resources available to them at the Centre. 

For the first class, a tutor, Mr Uche Chukwu had an introductory session with them for them to know themselves, after which they delved into an introduction to the Linux Operating System they would be working with.  Next the students were taught a brief history and the different types of distros under Linux. Considering that most of the students have never operated a computer system before, they were given an overview of what a computer is, its various parts and components. They were equally taught the difference between a laptop and a desktop. After all that was done, they were then taught how to boot, unlock and log in the system. Thereafter, they were taught how to make inputs into the system using the keyboard and were then asked to practice and improve their typing skills with the use of some applications which include, KTouch and Klavaro. They were also taught some of the Linux commands to familiarize them with the Linux Operating System.

Week in week out, they kept on learning with the resources that was made available to them, and improved on their skills daily as they underwent the self learning process and practiced what they learnt in the videos they watched under the guidance of their tutor. 

After 2 Months with Mr Uche, we had to bring in another tutor, Mr Onotu Andah because Mr. Uche was leaving for further education.  Mr Onotu continued from where Mr Uche stopped and took the students on more in depth learning covering different Programming Languages for eight months.

There were also days set aside for group discussions as well, where the students would come together and make an individual list of areas, topics, essays or concepts they found difficult to understand, and discuss these among themselves. They they coordinated the group discussions among themselves, whereby one of them plays the role of  the tutor,  and explains the part he or she understands to the rest of the group and they rotate this tutor role until they exhaust all the items on their list, and if there was any concept that was difficult for any of them to explain to the group, they then went ahead to ask their tutor at the next class for more explanation on the said topic or subject.

Update on students participation

As the months progressed, some students, directly or indirectly, had to be removed from the program at different stages. At the commencement of the program, students  were made to understand that they are expected to show consistency, diligence, hard work, good attitude towards learning and the intent to keep improving their skills. Anything outside of these constituted grounds for removal from the program. Consequently, and unfortunately, one student who couldn’t meet up with the required attendance was asked to leave after consulting with student and their parent. Additionally, four students dropped out. We were ultimately left with only nine students who would later graduate at the end of the program in August 2022. 

Expenses for the program

This was our first time of undertaking a program of this kind and it was meant to be a six months pilot run. However, we ended up extending it to 12 months, that is, from August 2021  to August 2022. This is a break down of the budget/fund used for the period of the program:

P.S: Kindly note that some prices are not fixed for the monthly purchases, which is why the range of the price is stated in the table, also note that the fees received from students is ₦500 per students every month

Guild Program Expense 2021/2022

End of the 2021/2022 Guild Program session

Towards the end of the session, for our first set of Guild Program students, their tutor, Mr Onotu gave them a project to work on. This project was later presented by the students to their parents during their Graduation Ceremony. This project involved them designing a personal web page, of which they would add various details about themselves as specified by their tutor. As soon as the project was given, the students began work on how to achieve this and through their dedication and the guidance of their tutor, their project was ready for presentation on their Graduation Day. On this day, their parents were there to see what they have been up to for the past one year and you could tell by the looks on their faces that they were impressed and proud of their children, as we were too!

At the end of the program, the students were each given  certificates, they took photographs with their parents after which we all took group photographs and ended the event.

Next Steps

It was earlier stated that as part of the requirement to gain access to Guild Centre, the students are to write monthly essays on any topic given to them, for the month of August, which was the last month of the program, the students were asked for a feedback of their experience of the program in the form of an essay, they are to write on the topic “Creating better experience for the new Guild students”. Based on the suggestions from their submissions and also, our capability as an organization at this time, we have taken new steps to ensure that the next set of students coming for the program get a more improved experience of the program, these include: getting a new space with good ventilation system, procurement of more laptops with good working batteries, improved power supply, among others. We will continue to improve and equip the Guide Center as we prepare for 2023 Guild Program.

Conclusion

We are glad to have embarked on a program like this, even though it was not a smooth ride at  the beginning, but seeing how impactful this program has been to the students has given us the courage and boost we need as we look ahead to the exciting prospects of a bright future that the program holds for the other students that would be enrolled into the program. We are grateful to God for placing us in the position to be able to give this much value to the students in our community.

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